4 312 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS joint property of all, and not until the United States agreed to cease purchasing lands from the Indians and restored the lands recently bought, would peace be possible. Pointing to the moon that had risen on the council, Governor Harri- son said that the moon would sooner fall to earth than the United States would give up anything fairly acquired. "Then," said Tecumseh, " I suppose that you and I will have to fight it out." But these councils ended in nothing except a manly and impressive state- ment by Tecumseh of his position, and a strong and terribly just indictment of the whites for their treatment of the Indians. Tecumseh was constantly on the move. Now on the Lakes, now on the Wabash, then on the Mississippi or the plains to the westward, then on the Ohio or the hills that roll to the south from it. Everywhere the Indians received him graciously. But an accident destroyed his plans, and one defeat dashed his confederation to pieces. During his absence Governor Harrison, alarmed at the gathering of warriors at the Prophet's town of Tippecanoe, on the Wabash River, in Indiana, marched against it. There was no necessity for a battle. It might easily have been avoided. Toward the close of day the Americans reached Tippecanoe. The Indians disclaimed any hostile ideas, and it was settled that the terms of peace were to be arranged the next day. That night, however, the Indians treacherously attacked the Americans. The conflict was fierce and bloody. The Indian braves were animated by the prom- ises of the Prophet, who declared that they would be victorious and that he had rendered the bullets of the white men of no avail. During the battle he stood on a neighboring hill and chanted a war song, to further fill his warriors with courage and enthusiasm. But though the red men fought gallantly, they were doomed to defeat. They were scattered up and down the Wabash, their town was burnt, and the power of the Western Indians was by this one blow shattered. So com- plete was the victory and so far-reaching in its effects, that General Harrison at once became the popular idol, and the glorification of the battle of Tippecanoe, a generation later carried him into the Presidential chair. It was this battle that gave the West to the whites. As for Tecumseh, he returned suddenly from the West to find that despite his commands, the Prophet had permitted a battle. In his rage and disappoint- ment he took his brother, now fallen and disgraced, by the hair and shook him. But no longer was it possible to hold his tribes together. The victory of the United States at Tippecanoe took the ardor for battle and resistance quite out of them. There were hundreds of them, however, who in the war of 1 8 1 2, which broke out immediately, followed Tecumseh into the British service, in which he was commissioned as a major-general. In that service he was doomed to continued disaster. The English commander. General Proctoj-, was incompetent and, in all the qualities of real manhood, the inferior of his savage ally. After the battle of Put-in-Bay, on Lake Erie, he started to retreat. Tecumseh protested, and was induced to go on only by the promise that winter supplies would be delivered a few miles up the Thames. It was on this stream that Proctor finally determined to make a stand, but at the outset of the action he, coward-like,
